The Buffalo Hat priest stooped and entered the tipi. The old Indian smiled in a friendly, admiring way. Charles began to believe what his partner had just said.
The trader and the priest greeted one another with sign. "Half Bear," Wooden Foot said, nodding and smiling. The priest said something in Cheyenne. To Charles the trader explained, "He just said my name. Man-with-Bad-Leg." To Half Bear: "This yere's my partner Charlie, and you remember my nephew, Boy. You know Scar didn't tell it straight, Half Bear. We always come peaceably, just to trade."
Charles understood when Half Bear said, "I know."
"When's Black Kettle gettin' back?"
The old Indian shrugged. "Today. Tomorrow. You stay here. Eat something. Be safe."
"Mighty fine with me, Half Bear." Wooden Foot slapped Boy's shoulder. Boy grinned. Charles did his best to rearrange his notions, the way Wooden Foot had advised.
"My dog's still hitched to the travois, Half Bear."
"I will bring him."
"They took our guns and knives —"
"I will find those, too."
The priest left. Soon Fen lay beside the fire, happily rolling in the dirt.
Charles had a lot of trouble believing that they'd covered themselves with honor by running. He continued to think about it while Half Bear served them berries and strips of smoked buffalo meat. After the meal, the priest arranged fur robes and woven headrests for their comfort.
Early next morning, Black Kettle rode in with a dozen braves. The members of the Jackson Trading Company, having rendered the inside of the tipi very fragrant out of natural necessity, were at last free to step into the open.
In the sunlight that had followed the snow, Cheyennes of all ages again surrounded them, including the pretty girl Charles had noticed. He found himself smiled at, patted, greeted with exclamations of "How!" which he interpreted as a word of approval. Of Scar he saw nothing.
Wooden Foot swelled up like an actor in front of a cheering audience. He grinned all over the place.
"No getting away from it, Charlie. We're heroes."
Better weather brought a resumption of village life outdoors. Bands of boys again stalked rabbits with blunt arrows, training for a tribal hunt when they reached maturity. Women and girls set about their traditional work of scraping hides, stretching them on frames, and then smoke-curing them.
Charles noticed a kind of pupil-and-teacher relationship in an attentive group of girls and mothers addressed by a much older woman. It was instruction by a member of the quilling society, Wooden Foot told him later. Decorative quilling had great religious significance for the Cheyennes, and had to be done in a prescribed way. Only women elected to the society could teach the art.
Black Kettle invited Wooden Foot, Charles, and Boy into his lodge one evening. Charles now knew from conversations with the trader that the Cheyennes had a number of peace chiefs, men of proven bravery and wisdom who advised the tribe when it was not at war. As Wooden Foot stressed, whites always wanted to deal with the chief, but he didn't exist. There were peace chiefs and war chiefs, as well as a chief for each camp — Black Kettle also held that position in his village — and there were leaders of the warrior societies. All of them collectively governed the tribe, which had numbered about three thousand people for as long as anyone could remember. If the tribe never increased, neither had it been diminished by disaster, starvation, or its foes. Charles's respect for the Cheyennes went up another notch when he figured that out.
The peace chief Moketavato was a well-built man of about sixty with braids wrapped in strips of otter fur. He had solemn eyes and an animated, intelligent face. He wore the familiar leggings and breechclout and deerskin shirt, all heavily decorated, and, in his hair, a cluster of eagle feathers and three beaten silver coins strung on a thong. He passed a long calumet to the white men after they all sat down. Just a couple of puffs of the smoke made Charles dizzy. His head filled with fanciful shapes and colors, and he wondered what sort of herb or grass was burning in the pipe bowl.
The peace chief's quiet and retiring wife, Medicine Woman Later, served a hearty turtle soup, then bowls of a savory stew. As they ate, Black Kettle apologized for Scar's actions. "The loss of his mother robbed him of reason and warped his nature. We try to curb him, but it is hard. However, your trade goods are safe, and your animals."
As Wooden Foot thanked him, Charles popped another warm morsel of meat into his mouth, following custom by using his fingers. "Delicious stew," he said.
Black Kettle acknowledged that with a smile. "It is my wife's finest, for honored guests."
"Young puppy dog," Wooden Foot said.
Charles almost threw up. He struggled to keep his mouth shut and his face calm while the piece of meat worked its way down his throat against a series of strong spasms. Finally the piece went down, though it didn't settle well. He ate no more, merely made a show of fiddling with the bowl.
"I hope that treaty you signed means peace for a while," Wooden Foot said.
"It is my hope also. Many of the People believe war is better. They believe only war will save our lands." He turned slightly, to include Charles, and spoke more slowly. "I have always thought peace the best path, and I have tried to believe the white man's promises. That is still my way, though fewer and fewer will go with me since Sand Creek. I took the People to Sand Creek because the soldier-chief at Fort Lyon said we would not be harmed if we settled there peacefully. We did, and Chivington came. So now I have no reason to believe promises, no reason but my own burning wish for peace. That is why I touched the pen again. Out of hope, not trust."
"I understand," Charles said. He liked Black Kettle, and saw the liking returned.
Outside the tipi, firelight gleamed, and there was festive music. Boy smiled and marked time in the air with his finger. Charles cocked his head. "Is that a flute?"
"Yes, the courting flute," Black Kettle said. "It is being played at the next tipi. Therefore it is Scar. He does have some interests besides war, which is a boon for the rest of us. Let us look."
They stepped into the twilight and saw Scar, near the adjacent tipi, playing a handmade wooden flute and moving his feet in a shuffling back-and-forth step. Black Kettle spoke a greeting. Scar started to return it, saw the traders and scowled. He blew several sour notes before he got the melody going again.
Tied to Scar's waist thong was a tuft of white fur. Wooden Foot pointed to it. "White-tailed deer. It's a big love charm."
A yellow dog ran by, barking. Fen ran away in pursuit, barking too. From the tipi that Scar was serenading, a young girl emerged — the same girl Charles had noticed the day he arrived. He saw a hand pushing the girl from inside. Evidently parents were forcing her out to acknowledge her suitor.
"It is my sister's child, Green Grass Woman," Black Kettle said to Charles. "She is fifteen winters now. Scar has wooed her for two, and must continue for two more before she can become one of his wives."
The gentle swell of the girl's breast showed that she deserved to be called Woman. She wore leggings and a long ornamented smocklike garment, which was pulled up to her groin and bunched front and back by a rope between her legs. Strands of the rope wrapped her body from waist to knee; she hobbled, rather than walked.
Black Kettle saw Charles's puzzlement. "She's no longer a child but not yet married. Until she's Scar's wife, her father ties the rope at night to guard her virtue."